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Living in a man’s body

The Internet is full of motivational messages saying things like “we’re all just pretending to be adult” and I have that feeling pretty often. In my case, I have the added complication of people telling me that they were intimidated by me when they first met me.

Intimidated? By me?

It always surprises me, in spite of my hearing it often. I’m such a big goofball.

But, I’m huge and bearded and look obviously like a man approaching forty. (Some would say I look older, but they’d only say it once!) And I forget that. In fact, get me on school grounds and I have to remind myself that I’m one of the adults, not one of the kids. (Ha! Teachers have to speak to me as an equal! In theory, anyway…)

Recently, though, I’ve had moments where I realized that I’m living in a man’s body. I can’t explain what exactly triggers it, but it’s generally at times when I’m in motion and I feel somehow… manlier? Not stronger, not even fitter. But whatever it is, it’s closer to ‘strong’ and ‘fit’ than it is to ‘old’ or ‘creaky.’ I’m not talking about feeling like an old man. (That I had more often when my back was giving me trouble.)

My best guess is that the plank workouts and all the burpees are giving me a degree of core strength that I didn’t have as a kid, or, apparently, in my early thirties. So, maybe it is fitness.

On the other hand, maybe I’m just developmentally slow in this as I am in so many other things and whatever this feeling is, it’s what made jocks walk around the school what that particular gait of theirs all those years ago. If I am slower, does that mean I get to die later?

And, if it is a question of fitness, I wonder if I’ll eventually find a broader link between my (hopefully) increasing fitness and the way I behave.